


Damaged Goods, Healed Wounds

by Lord_of_Spirits_and_Bazongas



Category: Tales of Xillia
Genre: F/M, aleia, jude mathis (mentioned)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-07
Updated: 2015-04-07
Packaged: 2018-03-21 18:44:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3702251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lord_of_Spirits_and_Bazongas/pseuds/Lord_of_Spirits_and_Bazongas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the journey with Ludger has come to its end, Alvin returns to run his company with Yurgen, but as Leia’s washing machine breaks down, he suddenly starts seeing the young reporter in the making at his place more and more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Damaged Goods, Healed Wounds

If someone were to come and tell Alvin few years back that someday he’d be selling fruits for living, he only would have laughed at them. Yet in reality he was at Marksburg with a juicy tomato in his hand, waiting for a new shipment to arrive from the Rieze Maxian side of the world. He didn’t personally really like the taste of tomatoes, yet if he wanted his customers to enjoy the best possible quality, he also needed to sample his goods to make sure they were up to his own standards.  
  
“Come on Yurgen…what’s taking you so long? You’re always the one complaining to me that I’m never on time and here I am waiting for you…” Alvin mumbled to himself as he gazed into the distance, yet his sharp eyes didn’t spot Yurgen, but instead people that based on their clothing very definitely living in Elympios. With a deep sigh, Alvin pulled out his GHS and searched for his address book. Yurgen’s name wasn’t hard to find for it was naturally on the bottom of the list. He could find it without even having to look at it, a skill which he was oddly proud of but one that he didn’t feel like sharing with others. With the tomato resting between his teeth, Alvin did his best to form his message as quickly as possible, but luckily he didn’t have to type all that much.  
  
‘What’s taking you so long? Seriously, hurry up’ and sent. Alvin gazed once more into the distance, yet he saw nothing that even resembled Yurgen. Normally Yurgen took his time to respond, yet this time it didn’t take him more than few seconds to respond, but that was because it wasn’t Yurgen he had texted to begin with. Upon a closer look Alvin saw that he had sent that message to Leia, whose name he had switched ‘you don’t want to text her when you’re drunk’ after one fatally accidental and alcohol-filled night.  
  
“Oh Maxwell why me?” Alvin grunted before he read the message out loud.  
**You don’t want to text her when you’re drunk (Leia):**  
‘Hey I’m sorry my washing machine broke down and I don’t have fresh pair of panties (*ﾟｰﾟ)ゞ’ Alvin stared at his GHS for a moment before rubbing his eyes, yet even after that the message remained the same. Before he could even think of a reply to her message, he received another text message.  
  
**You don’t want to text her when you’re drunk (Leia):**  
‘Alvin? wtf? seriously, look who you text you jerk! (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ’   
Luckily Leia had steadily began to lower the amount of emoticons she used in her text messages, yet when Alvin had tried pointing out that for journalist it would be better to focus on her grammar rather than funny smileys, Leia didn’t want to hear any of it. Given that Yurgen still wasn’t anywhere to be seen, Alvin decided to be polite and respond back to Leia.  
  
‘I’m sorry okay? I was trying to text Yurgen but your name was right next to his (and don’t ask me how or why), but if you need some help my place is always open for you, you know? Just let me know beforehand before you come all right?’ Alvin rubbed his forehead for a moment before he sat down on concrete stairs leading to the train station. Once again, the enthusiastic reporter demonstrated her skills in typing as Alvin got an reply before he could even take another bite of his tomato.  
  
**You don’t want to text her when you’re drunk (Leia):**  
‘Really? thats awesome!! ヾ(。◕ฺ∀◕ฺ)ノ but I dont have a key to your place al! and im kinda in a hurry here! or do you expect me to go commando or something huh?!’ Alvin couldn’t help himself not to chuckle at Leia’s message before he began to type his response back to her.  
  
‘Well you ain’t that delicate of a flower, just wear the ones you have now and come to my place later tonight, you can use my washing machine for all of your hearts content, I ought to be free myself in few hours, how does that sound to you?’ Alvin put his GHS down and looked around, yet even though people around him changed, there was still no sign of Yurgen anywhere. Once again though, it didn’t take long for Leia to come up with her response.  
  
You don’t want to text her when you’re drunk (Leia):  
‘Awesome!! (〃･ω･)ﾉ you saved me al, I knew you’d be useful someday, I’ll come and meet up with you later!! BYE! ヽ(´∀｀ヽ)’ Alvin shook his head for a moment before he put his GHS back into his pocket. This conversation was considerable shorter than the ones he mostly had with Leia.  
_“That girl always has something to talk about, but for some reason during night-time in particular…but I suppose it’s better that she’s ‘bothering’ me than Jude, honor student seems to be nose deep in his research…”_  Alvin thought as he stared into the distance.  
“Hard to imagine that we’re friends these days…I was really awful to her back in the days…even shot her…this really is the least I can do to her after everything I put her though…” Alvin was so focused on his thoughts that when Yurgen waved back at him, he didn’t register his presence at all. It took a grunt from one of the beasts that followed Yurgen to wake Alvin up from his trance.  
  
“You, sure were deep in your thoughts, that’s not very like of you” Yurgen chuckled before he offered his hand to Alvin. Reaching out for him, Alvin grabbed his partner to pull himself back onto his feet before dusting himself clean.  
  
“Haha…but I suppose you’re right. Is everything in order?” Alvin wanted to ask what took Yurgen this long, yet knowing that it would only cause trouble he decided to bury that question away.  
  
“Yes, we even have some rare eggs in the mix, that ought to bring up good gald if you know who to sell them to, but that’s what you do best.”   
  
Alvin grinned back at Yurgen before giving him a few pats on his back.  
“Yup, you  got that right, you just leave the selling to me, I know how to talk my way in and out of any situation after all”   
  
Yurgen nodded back at Alvin.  
“Well we all know that to be true. Could you hand me this months payment now? You know how sometimes you just suddenly need gald and–”  
  
“Hey, say no more Yurgen, you’re my partner after all” Why he needed the money right now was a question Alvin wanted to get answer to, yet it wasn’t his time to ask such things if Yurgen himself wasn’t willing to tell him outright. Reaching out for a small sack from his backpocket, Alvin handed Yurgen a sack filled with gald, not the most optimal of ways when it came to transferring money, but people in Xian Du were old fashioned in many ways, currency included.  
  
“Thank you Alvin, I will see these fruits to the warehouse, you can start selling them tomorrow. Have a good one” As quickly as he had appeared, he was gone, leaving Alvin alone in Marksburg train station.  
  
“Oh right! Leia! I totally forgot her…I gotta head back home before she arrives!” Alvin picked up his suitcase and dashed off to catch the leaving train in nick of time.  
  
Back at his place, Alvin headed straight to shower. While the trains between Marksburg and Trigleph were definitely fast, they were packed, especially so during after work hours when people travelled back to their homes. It was nice to see nature flourishing again in Elympios, yet the heat of the sun was both a blessing and a curse in one package. Even Alvin was bound to lose his calmness when the sun melted his suit to be part of his skin. His tie was wrinkled and even his hair was losing its form as it fell flat up against his face. For someone who in the past was used to living luxurious life, Alvin certainly didn’t live like a he used to, but thanks to his years working as a mercenary he had gotten used to sleeping in pretty much everywhere. There was odd sense of enjoyment from building life back to normal, having a growing business was but one of the many things Alvin was slowly building up in his life. The steady stream of water helped Alvin to calm down, yet it oddly brought the image of Leia into his mind as well. Remembering how despite everything he had put her through, she was willing to trust him, even if she had all the reasons to turn her back at him, she never did. Truly she was a remarkable young woman, she had believed in Alvin when even he had lost all of his hope for any redemption. Much like she had saved Jude, she had also indirectly saved him as well. Seeing her be so casual around her, as if nothing had ever happened, it pained Alvin, yet he knew that if he were to tell that to Leia she would only scold him for having such stupid thoughts. Everyone had grown a lot during their journeys and Leia certainly was no exception. Back when Alvin had first met her, Leia was seemingly over-energetic and even a bit naive friend of Jude’s, yet throughout the journey she had proven herself in various ways. The water helped Alvin to overcome the cursed heat of the outdoors but it did little to calm his mind, filled with thoughts of Leia. Alvin justified such thoughts with the fact that they had texted today, yet the vivid images in his head were something that even the water pouring on him couldn’t fade away. He knew it was wrong to think of her in such fashion, yet sometimes the upper and lower minds truly had minds of their own. Reaching out for a bathrobe, Alvin put a towel around his waist, but just as he was about to reach out for more towels to dry himself up, his doorbell rang.  
  
“Well…Leia promised to call, so it can’t be her…whoever it is can wait” Alvin thought to himself as he began to dry up his toes, yet the person behind his door was clearly inpatient as the doorbell rang continuously without a moment of silence in between.  
“Hmph…okay, fine, fine, just calm down, okay?” Alvin grunted as he stepped out of the bathroom and opened up the door. Behind his door was no other than Leia Rolando, who had an amused smirk on her face as she observed Alvin’s rather minimalistic clothing.  
  
“Oh right, I totally forgot to call you…sorry!” Leia didn’t bother to wait for Alvin to ask her to step in as she shuffled her way between him and the door, rubbing herself up against his naked body a bit in the process.  
  
“Well that’s…not a problem, really. Washing machine is in the bathroom, but it’s a bit slippery there, so be careful. I just took a shower as you can probably see” Leia wasted no time as she and the comically large sack on her shoulder dashed in to Alvin’s bathroom. Alvin had barely made his way to kitchen as Leia’s voice could be heard echoing from the bathroom.  
  
“Do you mind if I take a shower? It’s boiling out there!” Alvin pondered her question for a moment, but since he couldn’t come up with any logical reason to deny her that, he said:  
“No, go ahead” As Alvin sat down with a cold beer in his hand, he could hear somewhat odd sound coming from the bathroom. At first he didn’t know what it was, but upon closer inspection he figured out that Leia was the type who enjoyed to sing in a shower, even if it belonged to someone else. There was always this odd, lively energy when Leia was involved, but Alvin would have been lying if here were to say that he didn’t enjoy having her around. It felt a bit weird to only be wearing a towel when he had visitors, but at the same time Alvin felt that around Leia he could be more carefree, she had seen him at his worst and lived to tell a tale, so she wouldn’t freak out from seeing him with nothing but a linen cloth to cover his body. Alvin grabbed himself the remote and began to surf through the channels, yet nothing that interesting seemed to be up in the air at that moment. On history channel there was a documentary about trains, something Jude was most likely eager to watch or at least record for later, but such topic wasn’t really close to Alvin’s heart so he decided to try his luck with another channel.In the background he could still hear Leia sing loud and clear. If he wasn’t mistaken, she was singing a theme song to a recent television show about noble houses fighting for supremacy; it turned out to be a real worldwide hit. Alvin certainly knew that peace and quiet had its place, he respected this simpler, more secure style of life he was living, yet at time the sound of silence bothered him. It was possibly because of his many years working as a mercenary, having to sleep sometimes in rather rough spots, always needing to be in high alert. Trying to drop old habits like that wasn’t just hard, it felt impossible at times. But hearing Leia’s soothing voice echoing in his apartment, it certainly bring it’s own kind of liveliness into it that no plants or electric devices couldn’t.  
  
_“She’s a good kid…it’s nice to have a lady around here too…it sure has been long since someone has dared to step in here…”_  Alvin looked around his apartment. He wasn’t really the messiest of people he knew, yet it was clear that his place lacked a woman’s touch, or anyone’s touch to that matter as his clothes were scattered all over the place. With a quick glance Alvin spotted a pair of dirty old socks on his kitchen table and a pair of underwear warming up on top of his television.  
_“Luckily Leia’s not the type to complain about these sorts of things…”_  Alvin thought to himself as he continued his search to find something worth watching. Alvin didn’t have to look at the monitor for very much longer though as his attention was taken by Leia who happily jumped her way out of Alvin’s steaming shower with a similar towel wrapped around her body.  
  
“Oh boy did that feel good! But…well, now all of my clothes are kinda in your washing machine so…well, I know you’re not the one to turn away a friend, let alone a half-naked one, right?” Leia let out a soft chuckle as she hopped her way to sit next to Alvin, landing smoothly right next to him. Alvin silently thanked Maxwell for the fact that Leia had properly tightened up her towel or he would have just seen something he both wanted and didn’t want to see at the same time.  
  
“W-well of course not, you’re a friend after all…isn’t that what friends are for?” Alvin forced somewhat awkward laugh while he did his best to keep his eyes on the television screen rather than on Leia, who certainly didn’t seem to feel ashamed to be close to Alvin while both of them didn’t really have much clothes to speak of on them.  
  
“Heh, that’s very much true…is there anything interesting going on right now? I can’t really afford a television…I just watch whatever I have on my laptop when I feel like it…and don’t give me the whole speech that it’s technically illegal, Jude already scolded me for it even though everyone does it!” Leia pouted at Alvin for a moment, her index finger just briefly touching his nose before Leia pulled herself away from him with a gentle laugh.  
  
“W-well, you know him better than anyone, that’s just our honor student doing his best to be the model citizen that he is—and hey, I’m not judging you or anything so really, don’t worry about that, Leia. I mean…you need to watch televisions shows for your work too right? Totally justified!” Alvin grinned back at Leia, who clearly seemed to like his answer as she softly chuckled with him.  
  
“Yeah! Exactly! Totally justified!” Leia leaned up slightly against Alvin’s leather couch before arching her back slightly.  
“Do you mind if I take a cold one too? I assume you have something that doesn’t have alcohol in it, I have some work to do and I’d rather stay sober”  
  
“No, go right ahead. There ought to be some mountain gel in there somewhere”  
Just as quickly as Leia had landed on Alvin’s couch she jumped away from it. Stepping her way into Alvin’s modest kitchen Leia bend over to open up the mini fridge where Alvin usually kept his drinks nice and cold.Alvin did his best to keep his wandering eyes away from Leia’s swaying behind, but thanks to her rather minimalistic clothing and his still semi-hard lower half, it was…difficult, if not impossible. It certainly didn’t help that the towel wasn’t very long…  
  
_“Stop, just…look away, she deserves better, you know it’s true”_  Yet even though he wholeheartedly agreed with his mind, his eyes were pretty much magnetized onto her towel-covered backside. Both to his luck and to his curse it didn’t take that long for Leia to find what she was looking for as Alvin was finally free to look away from her.  
_“Just…think about…I don’t know, naked Rowen or something…calm down…breath slowly…you’ve been through worse…”_  Alvin silently repeated to himself as he tried his best to control his own blood flow so that he wouldn’t send Leia any wrong signals.  
  
“Sure looks like that the fruit business is going pretty good, right Al? I mean, this place isn’t much…but it’s kinda luxurious when compared to my place. I mean, you should see how small my kitchen is!”  
  
“Well actually–” Alvin interrupted the enthusiastic reporter before continuing right after taking a sip of his beer.  
“I have seen it…technically…you do send me plenty of pictures after all. I know every corner of your workplace too, and I haven’t even set my foot in there”  
  
“Oh…hehe…right right! Well I mean…at least you talk back to me…I tried talking with Jude but–” Leia sat down next to Alvin before she opened up her own can.  
“–you know him, he’s always so busy with his Spyrite research…sometimes even too much if you ask me but I guess it’s his way to cope up with everything that happened.”  
  
“Yeah…I feel sorry for the kid, really…I mean, he got his few days of reunion with Milla but it surely was short lived. He’s not a bad kid but…well he’s just really into his work, and– I can’t blame him. But…” Alvin looks right at her.  
“…if you need someone to talk to, well, I’m always available to you, Leia.You know that” Alvin added as he scratched his cheek.  
  
Leia gave Alvin a few pats on his thighs before flashing him a smile.  
“Yeah, I know that, that’s why I keep texting you, silly! I want you to have some company too. And even though you’re busy with your work you always have time for me, and that’s…well, nice.”  
  
Alvin only smiled back at Leia.  
_“Curses, woman,don’t touch me there…I really hope you’re not doing this on purpose…!”_  Alvin conjured up all sorts of images into his head that were as opposite as possible of anything stimulating and to his luck they seemed to work, at least temporarily.  
  
“It’s really the least I can do…you said you have some work you needed to finish, didn’t you?” Alvin hoped that this distraction would get Leia away from him.  
  
“Oh right! I almost forgot! Yeah…I have this report that I need to have done by tomorrow noon…you don’t mind me staying here for the night, do you? I promise to be quiet if you have some visitors or something.“  
  
"Well, I don’t—but yeah, you can stay here…I mean, you already kinda have to but…like I said, anything for a friend…” Alvin mumbled in response.  
  
Leia jumped away from the couch once more but in few seconds she was there again, but this time with a small laptop on her lap. It wasn’t anything fancy, even Alvin could tell that much, but it truly was a rather handy device for plenty of reasons.  
  
"Yeah…this is actually sorta prequel story for my upcoming article about fractured dimensions. I wanted to get their appetite up so to speak before I write my hit article and—I just hope people will read it. So many of those people we met live only in our memories, after all…Agria and…”  
  
“Yeah…I’m sure they will, you just have to make it good enough right?” Alvin gave Leia a playful wink to go with his encouragement.  
  
“You got that right, Al, now back to writing!”  
  
  
  
Alvin had fallen asleep onto the couch, only to wake up as the movie that was going on had a sudden action scene. Cursing the bright color to the lowest abyss, Alvin quickly grabbed the remote and turned the television off. What he hadn’t prepared for though, was the fact that Leia was also in deep sleep, but instead of lying up against a pillow she was using Alvin’s lap as her pillow.  
  
_“Shit! How do I…get into my bedroom now…?!”_  Alvin tried to slowly loosen up Leia’s hold of him, yet she was clutching onto him tightly like a bear. With a soft yawn escaping past her lips, Leia rubbed her sleepy head up against Alvin’s crotch before she started to quietly snore again.  
_“Great…I can’t wake her up either because she has work tomorrow and I know how much it sucks to do anything without enough sleep…”_  Alvin pondered his options, yet he didn’t see any good way out of this mess.  
_“Well, if either of us catches a cold I’m blaming this one on you…just don’t pull down my towel, okay?”_  Alvin looked up to the slowly spinning ceiling as if to send his prayers to Maxwell before shutting his own eyes once more. When he had imagined falling to sleep with a girl this certainly wasn’t the scenario he had in his mind, but in reality…this wasn’t all that bad either. 

**Author's Note:**

> You can also find me at tumblr http://lordofspiritsandbazongas.tumblr.com/ If you have ideas, suggestions, feedback, comment, anything like that, feel free to contact me.


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